Saturday, 30 June 2007

There was lots of childish name-calling and finger-pointing as the amnesty bill died. Lindsey Graham, my Senator, called me a bigot (again) and Teddy Kennedy implied I was a Nazi. But somehow DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff pissed me off more with this subtle approach:

"You will continue to see heart-wrenching examples of families being pulled apart, because I have an obligation to enforce the law whether it’s painful to do or whether it’s pleasurable to do," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who lobbied for the bill.

Let me decode that for you. Heart-wrenching examples of families leaving their anchor babies behind, when they could just as well take them along, will get maximum press coverage. Gang members and social security fraudsters? Not so much.

By the way, every time Chertoff tells us he has to stop looking for terrorists in order to deport illegals, all I hear is a teenager who can’t clean his room because he suddenly remembered his homework needs to be done.

You have to hand it to these jihadists. When cell phone triggers failed to set off car bombs outside London nightclubs, they went to Plan B, a kamikaze car bomb at Glasgow’s airport. Alas, early reports reveal no fatalitites and only one serious injury, one of the men in the car. The other was arrested.

Which raises the question: How many jihadists does it take to drive a suicide bomb car? The original kamikazes flew single-seat aircraft for a reason ...

The biggest open question now is how long it takes the moonbat left to point out they were driving an American SUV. My money says Al Gore sometime this weekend.

Friday, 29 June 2007

The puling pols of the amnesty caucus frequently asked what their opponents wanted, suggesting we were merely obstructing them. Not so. Here’s Ed Morrissey:

So what should happen now? The problems of immigration did not disappear with the failure of the cloture vote a few moments ago. Congress needs to act to resolve them -- but they need to do so in a manner that respects the processes of representative democracy, and in a manner that builds the confidence of Americans rather than fuel their cynicism.

They need to address border security and visa-program problems immediately. Congress has left these problems simmering for over 21 years. Their failure to address the issue over two decades has demonstrated that Washington does not consider those issues a very high priority, and the Senate’s insistence on tying them to normalization underscores that. Poll after poll shows that Americans don’t believe Congress when it says it will do something -- and so Congress needs to demonstrate their competence first before we take a flyer on creating another vast bureaucratic nightmare.

Secure the borders. Fix the visa program. Do those tasks by using the proper legislative processes in both chambers, allowing for real debate, honest and open amendment opportunities, and quit using clay pigeons and other parliamentary tricks to hide the bill and railroad it through Congress.

In other words, act responsibly, instead of trying to pull a fast one on the American public.

(3) Respect people who follow the law, and make legal immigration easier, cheaper, and simpler, rather than the Kafkaesque nightmare it is now;

(4) Don’t feel you have to be "comprehensive" -- address the problems you can deal with first. The trust needed to deal with other problems will come later, after you’ve shown some success and some good faith.

My own two cents:

Protecting the security of this nation, in this case the security of our border, is not something to be bargained over as part of a "compromise," it is something to be done. Keep building fences, putting up sensors, deploying border patrol agents, hiring bounty hunters, and prosecuting employers until we get real results.

Illegals are criminals. Whatever deal they are offered, if they are offered one at all, doesn’t have to make them happy. It has to make our citizens happy. No in-state tuition for their kids, no tax breaks, no welfare, no citizenship. Much larger penalties. Note: a special income tax rate for the rest of their lives would be a fine penalty mechanism. The illegals can take it or leave it. (Or should I say "take it or leave"?)

All illegals are not created equal. Throw the felons, social security fraudsters, DUI convicts, gang members, etc. out first, no questions asked. Streamline deportation as required.

A sting in which police teamed up with "Dateline NBC" to catch online pedophiles was supposed to send a flinty-eyed, Texas-style warning about this Dallas suburb: Don’t mess with Murphy.

Instead, it has turned into a fiasco.

One of the 25 men caught in the sting — a prosecutor from a neighboring county — committed suicide when police came to arrest him. The Murphy city manager who approved the operation lost his job in the ensuing furor.

And the district attorney is refusing to prosecute any of the men, saying many of the cases were tainted by the involvement of amateurs.

Some other suspects contacted Perverted Justice decoys online but never showed up at the house. Among them was Louis Conradt Jr., an assistant prosecutor from neighboring Kauffman County, who allegedly engaged in a sexually explicit online chat with an adult posing as a 13-year-old boy.

As police knocked at his door and a "Dateline" camera crew waited in the street, Conradt shot himself.

His sister, Patricia Conradt, told the City Council that police acted as "a judge, jury and executioner that was encouraged by an out-of-control reality show."

Sorry, lady, it’s not anybody else’s fault that your brother was a pedophile. And he was rather clearly his own executioner.

Here’s the NIMBY part:

As details of the suicide emerged, Murphy’s mayor, City Council and most of its residents learned for the first time that potential molesters were being lured to their city. Many were furious.

"They can chase predators all they want, but they shouldn’t do it in a populated area with children, two blocks from an elementary school," said Lisa Watson, 33, who lives down the road from the sting house and has three children and another on the way.

Bryan Whorton, who lives with his wife and baby across the street from the house, said his neighborhood was put in danger. Cars sped up and down the street and police sprinted from hiding spots, guns drawn, to arrest suspects, he said. One suspect dropped a bag of crack, Whorton said.

"This is a family community. It didn’t look kosher at all," he said.

Trying to lure a pedophile to a downtown warehouse district on the pretense of meeting a 13-year-old at his home is what wouldn’t look "kosher." They’re perverted, not stupid.

The timing of a thwarted bombing in London gives no doubt who its real target was:

"It’s a way of testing Gordon Brown," said Bob Ayers, a security expert at the Chatham House think tank. "It’s not too far-fetched to assume it was designed to expedite the decision on withdrawal (from Iraq)."

Then again, it could be the other bunch that merely wants to impose Islamic theocracy on the world.

And could there be a worse day for the Supreme Court to suggest our being more nuanced in fighting the war?

Thursday, 28 June 2007

Buried in the House debate over the Fairness Doctrine is the basic difference between left and right. A Dem (Serrano) asks "Why are you so afraid of something called the Fairness Doctrine?"

A government calling something "fair" does not make it fair. Indeed, government probably is calling it "fair," rather than something more forthright and mundane, because it is anything but. "Fair" is the lipstick on the pig.

A number of Senate sources explain how Senator Brownback appears to have voted today. "When the roll was first called, he calmly called out ‘aye,’ from his seat. Near the end, however, he walked down into the well and as they called out his name again he voted ‘no.’"

Pity that "B" comes so early in the alphabet. Good luck with that presidential campaign, Senator.

Ed Morrissey notes another example of bipartisanship in the Congress. The House has voted to let its cost of living pay raise go through. Never let 14% approval ratings get in the way of a 3% pay hike.

A brief outbreak of sanity in the United States Senate has killed the amnesty bill. I’d feel more like celebrating if an idea this stupid hadn’t taken so much time and effort to stop.

In the end, support utterly collapsed as the heavily-lipsticked pig received only 46 votes, not the 60 needed for cloture, nor even a majority. A few notable switches (in the right direction) from the earlier cloture vote:

Murkowski and Stevens: Gee, do you think the news of how cheaply they were being bought had any effect?

McConnell: Imagine, a party leader listening to 80% of his party. (Lott still doesn’t get it.)

Collins: Say, isn’t she up for re-election next year?

This struggle proved very worthwhile in one respect: We now know who our friends are. And this vote is no reason to take our collective foot off the necks of McCain, Hissy Fit and the rest.

I had to laugh out loud over one thing Harry Reid said after the bill crashed. He was talking about his new bipartisan friends and said there were "trusts initiated that didn’t exist before." Several GOP senators have traded the trust of the people who elected them for that of Harry Reid. Good luck with that.

Sadly this does nothing to fix the immediate problem. The Dems will use this as an excuse to do nothing. But this sets up immigration as the issue folks will run on next year, moreso than Iraq which provides fewer policy options. Let’s start a bidding war on who can be tougher.